Peripheral Thinking

There is an over-emphasis on the story of growth in our culture, particularly when it comes to work and the economy. This story of growth can lead to ecological destruction, as well as personal and social destruction.

We need to recognise the interconnectedness of everything and understand that there are many things that can grow, and that there isn’t one particular type of growth. We need to let go of the fear of death and embrace the natural cycle of creation, sustainability, decline, and death. If we do this, we can create a new story of growth that is regenerative and transformative.

This is part one of a conversation between Ben and James William Harrup, on James’ podcast, Change the Story, Change the World.

• Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, by Adrienne Maree Brown
• Happy Startup School Summercamp

The first Reformation led to social phenomena like the English civil war, where people overthrew the corrupt Papacy and government. The Second Reformation allows people to directly experience the visions and revelations of prophets through psychedelic catalysts. By going deeper and dealing with the root cause of the crises, writer Daniel Pinchbeck believes we can create a completely different shared reality.

Western elites have been embracing mysticism in recent decades. The coming together of this and a revived esoterism could break the materialist capitalist logjam, leading to a completely different shared reality. Daniel Pinchbeck discusses how the ecological emergency could be tackled – along with the dangers of people becoming dispossessed in the wake of automation – and how we can imagine things in a radically different way.

• Daniel’s books
• Daniel’s Substack newsletter
• The Liminal Institute
• The Soul of Man Under Socialism – Oscar Wilde, 1891
• Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria
• Psychedelic Future of the Mind: How Entheogens are Enhancing Cognition, Boosting Intelligence, and Raising Values, by Thomas Roberts
• At Work in the Ruins – Peripheral Thinking episode 18, with Dougald Hine
• Transition towns
• Dark Money: How a Secretive Group of Billionaires is Trying to Buy Political Control in the US, by Jane Mayer

More and more people feel lonely and depressed - and that's in a time of ever greater (technology fueled) 'connection'.

65% of University students in the US say that they're so anxious that they have trouble functioning. A high percentage suffer from anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. And it's not just students.

Varun Soni is the Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life at the University of Southern California. He believes young people (and I'd say *all people*) need something sacred in their lives; something that lends a sense of meaning, purpose, and identity greater than themselves - much of what religion of old used to do...

• Varun’s website
• Mindfulness, Leadership, Spirituality – Episode 96 of Finding Mastery
• How do we make meaning and beauty? with Casper ter Kuile – Episode 15 of Peripheral Thinking
• The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving, by Lisa Miller

Nature teaches us ways we can set up the system of our lives to promote presence and calm. We can do this by rewilding – leaving things alone, and letting them find their own course.

On this episode, Ben reflects on two gardens that have left a lasting impression on him. One garden has been intentionally given back to nature, whereas the other is crowded and overgrown.

What do we need to end? What do we need to cut back? What do we need to trample on to invite new growth and a rewilded natural existence in our lives?

• Who Doesn’t Want a Little Peace and Calm? – Peripheral Thinking, with Martin Alyward
• Might Daoism be a home for you in '22 (and beyond)? – Peripheral Thinking, with George Thompson
• The Knepp Estate

This is a beautiful conversation about endings, among other things.

Dougald is / was a long term climate campaigner - working alongside scientists, often picking up the story where their work ends. He joins Ben to talk about his new book, the beautifully titled ‘At Work In The Ruins’.

Picking a path through the various crises of our times, the book is equal part invitation and provocation; it is not a source book of solutions to the climate emergency and beyond. Quite the opposite.

It’s an invitation to think and feel and respond into our changing world with a humility, curiosity and hope. It’s an invitation to work to end all that no longer serves us - in modernity and the lives we currently lead. And in all these endings we might find that something new and far more beautiful is born.

Enjoy.

• The Work in the Ruins (May 2023)
• At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics and All the Other Emergencies – Dougald’s book
• Dougald’s website
• Dark Mountain manifesto
• Hospicing Modernity: Parting with Harmful Ways of Living, by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
• A World of Many Worlds, edited by Marisol de la Cadena & Mario Blaser
• Vandana Shiva
• Gustavo Esteva
• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, by Iain McGilchrist
• Ani.Mystic: Encounters with a Living Cosmos, by Gordon White
• Cynefin Framework
• A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity, and a Shared Earth, by Chris Smaje
• Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures
• Tyson Yunkaporta
• Bayo Akomolafe
• Red Hand Files
• Robin Williams’ speech in Good Will Hunting
• A School Called Home
• Dougald’s writing on Substack

Richard Wain decided to become a mathematician instead of a rock 'n roll star. He made this decision on a whim with only a month or two of preparation, because it would bring him closer to his now wife.

Later, he and his wife left behind stable jobs with guaranteed contracts. Richard became a primary school teacher before setting up a business with previous guest Marcus Link.

These caterpillar-to-butterfly transformations and the lessons they brought have shaped him into the person he is today. He joins Ben to talk about radical transformations,

• Richard’s website
• Vu Online
• Beginning the regenerative journey – Peripheral Thinking, with Marcus Link

“Once you start looking under the lid of climate change, it's hard to deny what you've seen”. Dan Burgess discovered this in 2006, and it’s informed his work ever since.

Dan is an activist and researcher who has been involved in the environmental and ecological movement for close to 20 years. His Spaceship Earth podcast explores our relationship with the living, more-than-human world, and how we can rethink our place within nature - is full of loads of inspiring guests, often in inspiring locations and is part inspiration for my own podcast adventure.

He’s launching a new programme, The Remix, is three-month online learning journey that brings together people who are committed to exploring new ways of being in relationship with the living world - and is informed by another project of his, Stories for Life, which explores the idea that stories might be a revolutionary technology on which fundamental change might spin. The program aims to cultivate a sense of connection with nature, create space for reflection, and help individuals find their own ways of being in service to the planet.

• Connect with Dan via LinkedIn
• The Remix – Dan’s guided action learning adventure
• Becoming Crew
• The Spaceship Earth podcast
• Active hope
• Stories for Life

Casper ter Kuile went into divinity school as a gay atheist, and emerged with a rich spiritual life that is not anchored in a specific religious tradition.

Casper is an author, podcaster and community leader who’s interested in the future of communion and religion and is passionate about understanding how people make meaning, experience beauty, and form relationships, in a time when traditional institutions are falling by the wayside.

He grew up in a Steiner school in Sussex, which was focused on creativity, nature, ritual, and community. After University, he was involved in mobilising young people around climate change, but eventually lost hope and suffered burnout. This led him to study at Harvard Divinity School, where he explored the relationship between change on the inside and change in the world outside.

• Connect with Casper on LinkedIn
• The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices – Casper’s book
• The Nearness – Casper’s community
• Harry Potter and the Sacred Text – Casper’s podcast
• The Nearness of You – Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong

Marcus Link, co-founder of New Foundation Farms and the Holos Project, speaks with Ben about his personal journey towards self-discovery and expression. Marcus shares his experience of learning to let go of the "doer" mentality and embracing being present and authentic in all aspects of life, even in uncomfortable situations like networking or business contexts.

He discusses his transformative experience on a pilgrimage in Italy and the importance of being seen and witnessed by others in order to integrate his inner baptism into his outer self.

• Episode 6 of Peripheral Thinking, with Marcus Link
• Connect with Marcus on LinkedIn
• New Foundation Farms
• The Holos Earth Project
• Bill Plotkin
• Peter Kingsley
• AN Whitehead on Plato
• Individuation and the Self
• Christopher Alexander
• Our Real Work, by Wendell Berry

Danny didn’t fit in as a child. Nowadays he might be considered neurodivergent, but his parents never tried to change or “fix” him. He spent much of his youth with the nomadic Sawad people near Galilee.

For Danny, the desert represents oneness on a cellular level – being a part of nature, not separate from it. But forty years spent in the desert came with a dramatic toll on Dany’s health, which took him – at the time of the Arab Spring – to the UK and then finding himself unable to return to Egypt, and unable to fit in.

• Danny’s website
• Walking Your Promise – Danny’s three-day retreat